Allen Orr’s Piece in the New Yorker

Allen Orr’s article against ID is now out in the New Yorker (go here). It’s as bad as I thought it would be. I’m on the road right now but will comment on it later in the week. Note that I remarked last week on this blog that a fact-checker from the New Yorker had contacted me about this article. It doesn’t appear that the time I spent with this fact-checker did much to improve this article.

You might have read the article, Benjii. There’s little, if any, outrage in it. In fact, he’s quite even keel throughout, and from my perspective, is quite fair to both Behe and Dembski. For that reason, I look forward to Dembski’s comments, so that I might understand why he thinks the article is so bad. It looks good to me, and my hope is that he addresses Orr’s empirical and theoretical points, along with the general point that ID has spawned little, if any, empirical research.

WHY? Why not a simple counterexample to the mathematical notions of ID? If thereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s something wrong with the math why not to show it? Why not to say Ã¢â‚¬Å“look, here in this theorem p does not entail q so your math is wrongÃ¢â‚¬Â (Ã¢â‚¬Å“gloriously and utterly wrongÃ¢â‚¬Â if you want). And if the math is right why not to show an instance of specified complexity where we know the causal history and it is not an intelligent cause?

But no, there is no one. All that you can find everywhere against the ID-math is accusations of creationism or Ã¢â‚¬Å“as it is widely shown Ã¢â‚¬Ëœin other placesÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ it doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t workÃ¢â‚¬ÂÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ the only problem is that the other places invoke the other places ;-).

Please critics, be nice with us, the poor ignorant guys who donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t know mathematics and who do not understand probability (!!!!)Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ Please Mr. Orr, teach me how not to be impressed Ã¢â‚¬Å“by a bit of mathematicsÃ¢â‚¬Â so easily.

Oh, Mr. Orr, and just a last paragraph in Ã¢â‚¬Å“independently given patternÃ¢â‚¬Â: it needs to be independent; in particular in biology if the pattern in question is dependent of evolution then the process is a teleological oneÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ and we donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t want it boys, right?. Now, if the problem is with Ã¢â‚¬Å“givenÃ¢â‚¬Â, it means Ã¢â‚¬Å“for allÃ¢â‚¬Â (you know, just a bit of math, of logic)Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ but donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t tell me you thought it meant given by the designer, serious? We all know youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re smarter than that. Finally if your problem is Ã¢â‚¬Å“patternÃ¢â‚¬Â maybe you were impressed Ã¢â‚¬Å“by a [very little] bit of biologyÃ¢â‚¬Â because independent or not, ad hoc or not, it is all aboutÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ patterns.